Influence Of Teachers’ Characteristics On Students’ Academic Performance In Biology
[SELECTED SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN ILORIN METROPOLIS]

Thus, it is becoming very clear that learning outcome is a comprehensive plan for measuring both academic performance/academic achievement and attitude. It is observed that majority of studies avoid the use of outcome. Measurement of outcome is considered most effective means of finding out information about students.
On the other hand, the term “teacher characteristics” can be referred to as qualities that can be measured with tests or derived from their academic or professional records. They indicate that teacher characteristics does not generally refer to the direct observation of their influence on students’ learning in terms of either students’ test performance or teaching behaviors. Rather, the approaches dealt within the scope of this research are those that fall traditionally into the province of personnel psychology or personnel selection. This review deals with those characteristics of teachers that might be identified and used in the initial hiring of teachers to increase their students’ achievement. Ashton (2006) indicates that these characteristics could include qualities of teachers that are viewed as personal– such as mental ability, age, gender–or as “experiential” – such as certification status, educational background, previous teaching experience and the like. Some characteristics are combinations – in unknown amounts – of personal and experiential qualities, for example; candidates’ performance on teacher-certification tests such as the national teacher examinations and state-mandated tests.
Teachers’ Qualification and Students’ Academic Performance
A well-qualified teacher is the one who was fully certified and held the equivalent of a major in the field being taught. Although the formal qualification of teachers is an important indicator for their knowledge and competence in teaching, it has only limited utility in analyzing how well prepared teachers are for what they have to teach in schools. More detailed knowledge of the courses they have taken during their training needs to be compared to the actual content and skills required to teach the high school’s curriculum. Ruthland and Bremer (2002) refer to teacher qualification in two ways - traditional and alternative qualification routes. Traditional certification is when an individual completes an undergraduate degree or post graduate program in education. Alternative routes of certification are based on coursework in pedagogy and subject area without a degree in education.
Hardy and Smith (2006) cite short term activities such as mentoring, peer evaluations and workshops as ways other than formal qualifications for improving teaching. More often graduates teachers with first degree content go into teaching if they cannot find another job right away. Although they often get somewhat lower salary than a fully qualified teacher; they choose not to enroll in the one year post-graduate professional training and therefore lack a basic foundation for teaching. Huang and Moon (2009) documents that teacher qualification accounted for approximately 40 to 60 percent of the variance in average of students’ achievement in assessment. Richardson (2008) reveals that students in urban areas performed better than those in rural areas. The researcher suggests that the availability of enough qualified teachers must have been a determinant for students’ performance.   
Wilson et al. (2001) suggest that even with the shortcomings of current teacher education and licensing, fully prepared and certified teaches are more successful with students than teachers without this preparation. The implication is that teachers with regular state certification receive higher supervisor ratings and student achievement than teachers who do not meet standards, but this observation was based on data with virtually no statistical controls having been imposed. In spite of the quantity of research on the benefits of teacher certification for student learning, little of the past research exercised controls over student “inputs” that would give the critical reader confidence in the findings.